Posted 4 months ago
Floor Flounder
Word: “Floor Flounder” (n)
Definition: Any climber at the gym, crags, or boulders who heedlessly lies/loafs/flounders around below the climbing venue, impeding anyone else who wants to tackle the wall or rock. There are five known subspecies of this creature:
•The Moray Eel: Like the dastardly, sharp-toothed sea eel that lurks in coral grottoes and then darts out to chomp off your arm, the climbing Moray Eel lairs within dank, dark bouldering caves where it cannot be seen…until you pull onto the wall next to it, that is.
•Pro Flounder: Any sponsored or otherwise entitled (5.13+, V-double-didgie- sickness) rock royalty who, “soooooo tired from their crusher workout,” must recover by lying on their backs in prime floor space whilst sipping a smart drink and complaining about picayune non-problems like which health-food store to shop at. Pro Flounders often travel in packs and will yard-sale their gear below the wall as an additional obstacle—because everyone knows that gym cubbyholes are for peons.
•Pad Barnacle: A Floor Flounder so crusted to the gymnastic mat or crashpad upon which he’s power-lounging that he will remain atop the mat even as you slide it over to a new landing zone. To remove him, you must scrape him off with a stickbrush.
•Puffer Fish: A Floor Flounder that springs into action, inflating itself like a puffer fish, as soon as it sees you prep to pull onto a climb it was trying. The Puffer Fish will then try to jump ahead in line before it falls off and resumes its place on the floor.
•Gossip Girls: Those two girls—you know them—who come to the gym specifically to lie around in rock shoes on the mats, gossiping for hours and perhaps climbing one warm-up problem before they leave.
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